History of Feminist Movement

19th through early 20th Centuries

First Wave:

In English speaking nations it focused primarily on

gaining the right of women's suffrage.

England: Suffragettes campaigned for the women's vote, which was eventually granted − to some women in 1918 and to all in 1928. United States: campaigned for the abolition of slavery prior to championing women's right to vote. Involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups, others resembling the diversity and radicalism of much of second-wave feminism. In the United States first-wave feminism is considered to have ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1919), granting women the right to vote.

Second Wave:

Focused as much on fighting social and cultural inequalities as further political inequalities.

THE 50’s

American culture is invested in strict sex-role types. “Leave it to Beaver” and   “Father Knows Best”. 

Many women are disgruntled by their status in society and their inability to hold successful careers or achieve equality.

THE 60’s

1960-The Food and Drug Administration approves birth control pills. They are made available in 1961.

“Free love”, “down with the establishment” —left politics gains momentum. Vietnam war protests. Many women who were excited to be part of this movement started to realize they were disempowered here too. Huge sexism in the movements of the left (“get the coffee, do the dirty work, have sex because we want it now, etc.”). Out of this, predominantly white middle class group came the seeds of the second wave of feminism.

In the black power movement women had a parallel experience, though loyalty to the racial cause and a largely white “women’s movement” kept many black women from participating in the second wave at it’s onset.

1961

    •President Kennedy establishes a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt.

    • 50,000 women in 60 cities, mobilized by Women Strike for Peace, protest above ground testing of nuclear bombs and tainted milk.

    • Helen Gurley Brown writes Sex and the Single Girl.

1963

    •"Mother of the Movement" Betty Friedan published her bestseller, The Feminine Mystique.

    •President John F. Kennedy's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women released its report on gender inequality.

    •The Commission's report finds discrimination against women in every aspect of American life and outlines plans to achieve equality. Specific recommendations for women in the workplace include fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave, and affordable child care. (Twenty years after it is first proposed, the Equal Pay Act establishes equality of pay for men and women performing equal work. However, it does not cover domestics, agricultural workers, executives, administrators or professionals.)

    •Beginning of formation of many local, state, and federal government women's groups as well as many independent women's liberation organizations.

1964

    •Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars employment discrimination on account of sex, race, etc. by private employers, employment agencies, and unions.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is established; in its first five years, 50,000 complaints of gender discrimination are received.

1965

    •Casey Hayden and Mary King circulate a memo about sexism in Civil Rights Movement.

    •The Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut strikes down the only remaining state law banning the use of contraceptives by married couples.

1966

    •Founding of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to function as a civil rights organization for women. The group is the largest women's group in the U.S. and pursues its goals through extensive legislative lobbying, litigation, and public demonstrations.

1967

    •Executive Order 11375 expands President Johnson's 1965 affirmative action policy to cover discrimination based on sex.

    • Women’s Liberation groups begin springing up all over the nation.

    • NOW begins petitioning the EEOC to end sex-segregated want ads and adopts a Bill of Rights for Women.

    • Senator Eugene McCarthy introduces the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the US Senate.

    • New York Radical Women is formed by Shulie Firestone and Pam Allen.

    • Anne Koedt organizes "consciousness raising" groups.

1968

    • The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) is founded by Betty Friedan and others.

    • Coretta Scott King assumes leadership of the African-American Civil Rights Movement following the death of her husband, and expands the movement's platform to include women's rights. Shirley Chisholm is elected to the United States Congress that same year, the first black congresswoman.

    • The EEOC rules sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers illegal, a ruling which is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court. Women now are able to apply for higher-paying jobs previously opened only to men.

    • New York feminists bury a dummy of "Traditional Womanhood" at the all-women's Jeanette Rankin Brigade demonstration against the war in Vietnam in Washington, D.C.

    • For the first time, feminists use the slogan "Sisterhood is Powerful."

    • The first public “speakout” against abortion laws is held in New York City.

1969

    •California adopts a "no fault" divorce law that allows couples to divorce by mutual consent. It is the first state to do so.

THE 70’s

Women were fighting for equal pay, reproductive rights, personal rights, recognition of their intellectual value and contributions to society, opportunities to rise in the workplace, opportunities to join in political decision making and government, financial independence from men, recognition of violence against women, rape and incest.

During the mid 70’s  and into the 80’s there was a contentious split in the population of women in the US. Along with most conservative women, many liberal women felt their security threatened and that the “feminists” were doing women a disservice—that they were “angry man-haters” and “lesbians” (a dirty word).  Lesbians within the women’s movement were asked to “pipe down” and be less obvious in order to gain legitimacy in the mainstream. Many lesbians moved away from the main movement to form their own “Radical Lesbian” branch. Race and class differences were beginning to be recognized and addressed. Feminist Therapy came out of these years.

Traditional roles are correct and supported in the bible: “They believed in the old way-That to gain power and privilege one must align with powerful and privileged men - to agree with them, gain some semblance of approval and recognition, and through them power and privilege...”

1970

    • The women's health book “Our Bodies, Ourselves” first published as a newsprint booklet for 35 cents.

    • A Ladies' Home Journal sit-in exposes the sexism of the "women's magazines".

    • The North American Indian Women's Association is founded.

    • Chicana feminists found Comision Femenil Mexicana Nacional.

    • Toni Cade publishes The Black Woman.

    • On August 26th, the 50th anniversary of woman suffrage in the U.S., tens of thousands of women across the nation participate in the "Women's Strike for Equality", organized by Betty Friedan, to demand equal rights.

    • Feminist leader Bella Abzug is elected to Congress, famously declaring, "A woman's place is in the House".

    • President Nixon vetoes the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have established federally funded childcare centers.

    • AFL-CIO meets to discuss the status of women in unions. It endorses the ERA and opposes state protective legislation.

    • The Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church allow women to be ordained.

    • National Right to Life Committee is established to block the legalization of abortion.

1972

    • The Equal Rights Amendment is reintroduced into the U.S. Congress and is passed by Congress with few members voting against it; it is then sent to the states for ratification.

The amendment reads:

    "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State        

     on account of sex."

    • President Ford, in support for the Equal Rights Amendment, issued Presidential Proclamation 4383 "In this Land of the Free, it is right, and by nature it ought to be, that all men and all women are equal before the law.

    • Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States of America, to remind all Americans that it is fitting and just to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment adopted by the Congress of the United States of America, in order to secure legal equality for all women and men, do hereby designate and proclaim August 26, 1975, as Women's Equality Day."

    • In Eisenstadt v. Baird the Supreme Court rules that the right to privacy includes the right to use contraceptives even if unmarried.

    • Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, passed by Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii, states "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." This revolutionary legislation ended sex discrimination in high schools and colleges.

    • The National Women's Political Caucus is founded by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Myrlie Evers, several congresswomen, including Shirley St. Hill Chisholm and Bella Abzug, several heads of national organizations, and others who shared the vision of gender equality

    • Headed and edited by journalist and activist Gloria Steinem, Ms. magazine becomes an independent publication, and is considered the magazine of the feminist movement. (It was originally published in the New Yorker, for which Steinem was a columnist.)

    • With the majority of feminists being pro-choice advocates of the legalization of abortion, pro-life women form the organization Feminists for Life to counter them.

    • Shirley Chisholm (see "1968") runs for the Democratic Party's nomination for President, the first African-American and second woman to run for a major party's nomination. She was the first woman to win primaries in a Presidential election.

    • The first battered women's shelter opens in the U.S., in Urbana, Illinois, founded by Cheryl Frank and Jacqueline Flenner.

    • New York Radical Feminists hold a series of speakouts and a conference on rape and women's treatment by the criminal justice system.

    • Feminist Women's Health Center founded in Los Angeles by Carol Downer and Lorraine Rothman.

1973

    • Argued by attorney Sarah Weddington (and earlier, Linda Coffee) the Supreme Court of the United States rules 7-2 in Roe v. Wade that abortion is constitutional in the first trimester of the pregnancy, with states reserving the right to restrict abortion later in the pregnancy.

    • Battered women's shelters open in the United States (in Tucson, Arizona and St. Paul, Minnesota.

    • The Supreme Court holds that sex-segregated help wanted ads are illegal. (See "1968")

    • Puerto Rican women hold their first conference.

    • In San Francisco, California, Margo St. James organizes Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE) to improve working conditions of prostitutes.

    • Antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly attacks the Equal Rights Amendment in her newsletter and forms the STOP ERA organization. What once looked like it was on its way to easy ratification now had run into fierce opposition.

1974

    • First Lady Betty Ford moves to the front of the feminist movement as she talks candidly about her pro-choice views and feminist stances. A moderate Republican, Mrs. Ford actively lobbies state legislatures to ratify the ERA, earning the ire of conservative who dub her "No Lady".

    • Mexican-American Women's National Association is formed as a Latina feminist organization.

    • Over a thousand colleges are now offering women's studies courses (with eighty having full programs) and 230 women's centers on college campuses provide support services for female students.

    • Helen Thomas, after covering Washington for thirty years, is finally named White House reporter.

    • Elaine Noble becomes the first openly homosexual candidate elected to a state legislature. She was elected in Massachusetts.

    • Coalition of Labor Union Women founded.

1975

    • For the first time, federal employees' salaries can be garnished for child support and alimony.

    • The National Right to Life PAC organized to stop women from obtaining abortions.

    • Phyllis Schlafly organizes her Eagle Forum as an alternative to "women's lib". The forum favors support of school prayer, law and order, and a strong national defense. It opposes against busing, federally funded child care, and abortion.

    • Tish Sommers, chair of NOW's Older Women Task Force, coins the phrase "displaced homemaker."

    • Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will on the ubiquity of rape is published. She later becomes one of TIME's "Women of the Year" (see below).

    • NOW sponsors "Alice Doesn't" Day, and asks women across the country to go on strike for one day.

    • Joanne Little, who was raped by a guard while in jail,

is acquitted of murdering her offender. The case establishes a precedent for killing as self-defense against rape.

    • In New York City the first women's bank opens

    • United States Military opens its military academies to women.

1976

    •The first marital rape law is enacted in Nebraska, making it illegal for a husband to rape his wife.

1977

    • The First National Women's Conference is held in Houston, Texas. Twenty-thousand representatives, women from all states, gather to pass a far-reaching National Plan of Action.

    • The National Association of Cuban-American Women formed.

    • The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence is established.

    • Eleanor Smeal, president of NOW, demands that homemakers should have their own Social Security accounts.

    • The American Civil Liberties Union asks the Rhode Island Supreme Court to allow women to use their own names, rather than that of their husbands.

    • The first women pilots of the United States Air Force graduate.

1978

    •The Briggs Initiative banning gays and lesbians, and possibly anyone who supported gay rights, from working in California's public schools lost in California.

1979

    • The Oregon v. Rideout decision leads to many states allowing prosecution for marital and cohabitation rape.

    • The Pregnancy Discrimination Act bans employment discrimination against pregnant women, stating a woman cannot be fired or denied a job or a promotion because she is or may become pregnant, nor can she be forced to take a pregnancy leave if she is willing and able to work.

    • ERA's deadline arrives with the ERA still three state short of ratification; Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman leads a successful bill to extend the ERA's deadline to 1982.

THE 80’s

Rape laws continue to change to allow prosecution of husbands. Lesbian and gay rights movement picks up momentum and visibility. The “straight” women’s movement addresses their homophobia in earnest and the L/G/B/T movement is supported.  Sodomy laws begin to be abolished.

1980/1981

     • For the first time since the introduction of the ERA, an anti-ERA President is elected.

1982

    • The ERA fails to be ratified, with only three more states needed to ratify it; President Reagan establishes a commission to find ways to ensure equality without an ERA.

Late 80’s

    • The extreme and forceful activism of the '60s and '70s comes to a halt, most people believing that the major goals of the feminist movement have been met, and thanks to laws and court decisions equality has been guaranteed without an ERA; however, twenty-two states add Equal Rights Amendments to their state constitutions and the ERA campaign continues to this day; most supporters hold that the ERA can still be added to the Constitution if ratified by three remaining states.

    • New opportunities arise for women, as a generation of women become lawyers, corporate executives, doctors, professors, scientists, politicians, members of the military, and astronauts.

  • In politics the U.S. saw not only its first female UN Ambassador and Supreme Court Justice, but its first female Transportation Secretary and U.S. Coast Guard Chief-Elizabeth Hanford Dole and, in 1984, the first woman nominated for Vice President of the United States, Democratic Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York. Also, a handful of women served the Reagan and Bush cabinets and in the U.S. Congress.

THE 90’s

    The Third Wave:

The movement arose as a response to perceived possible failures of, and in response to a backlash against, initiatives and movements created by second-wave feminism of c. 1960s through the 1980s

Third-wave feminism's central issues are that of race, social class and sexuality. However, they are also concerns of workplace issues such as the glass ceiling, sexual harassment, unfair maternity leave policies, motherhood—support for single mothers by means of welfare and child care and respect for working mothers and mothers who decide to leave their careers to raise their children full-time.

Third-wave feminists want women to be seen as intelligent, political beings with intelligent, political minds; some claim that there is a lack of diverse, positive female representatives in pop culture. They also want to put attention to the media's unhealthy standards for women; the glamorization of eating disorders; the portrayal of women as sexualized objects catering solely to the man’s needs, and anti-intellectualism.

Third-wave feminism allows women to define feminism for themselves by incorporating their own identities into the belief system of what feminism is and what it can become through one's own perspective.

Third-wavers are proactive in issues, such as activism. Authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards wrote Manifesta, which introduced the idea of third-wave feminism well by making the connection that feminism can change with every generation and individual.

Also considered part of the third wave is sex-positivity, a celebration of sexuality as a positive aspect of life, with broader definitions of what sex means and what oppression and empowerment may mean in the context of sex. For example, many third-wave feminists have reconsidered oppositions to pornography and sex work of the second wave and challenge existing beliefs that participants in pornography and sex work cannot be empowered.

Emphasizing fluid power and the ambiguity of gender, third-wave theory usually incorporates elements of queer theory, transgender politics and a rejection of the gender binary, anti-racism and women-of-color consciousness, womanism, post-colonial theory, critical theory, transnationalism, ecofeminism, libertarian feminism, and new feminist theory.

Third-wave feminists often focus on "micro-politics" and challenge the second wave's paradigm as to what is, or is not, good for women.

Some third-wave feminists prefer not to call themselves feminists, as the word feminist can be misinterpreted as insensitive to the fluid notion of gender and the potential oppressions inherent in all gender roles, or perhaps misconstrued as exclusive or elitist by critics. Others have kept and redefined the term to include these ideas. Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge any universal definition of femininity. In the introduction of To Be Real, the Third Wave founder and leader writes,

     "Whether the young women who refuse the feminist label realize it or not, on some level they    

    recognize that an ideal woman born of prevalent notions of how empowered women look, act, or think

    is simply another impossible contrivance of perfect womanhood, another scripted role to perform in

    the name of biology and virtue”

Third-wave feminism deals with issues that seem to limit or oppress women, as well as other marginalized identities. Consciousness raising activism and widespread education is often the first step that feminists take toward social change. In their book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards write, "Consciousness among women is what caused this [change], and consciousness, one’s ability to open their mind to the fact that male domination does affect the women of our generation, is what we need... The presence of feminism in our lives is taken for granted. For our generation, feminism is like fluoride. We scarcely notice we have it—it’s simply in the water."

2000’s

G/L/B/T/I rights are increasing through passage of Domestic Partnership laws and legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Vermont and briefly California.

Eco feminism becomes more well known:

Ecofeminism, or ecological feminism, is a term coined in 1974 by Françoise d'Eaubonne. It is a philosophy and movement born from the union of feminist and ecological thinking, and the belief that the social mentality that leads to the domination and oppression of women is directly connected to the social mentality that leads to the abuse of the environment. Its advocates often emphasize the importance of interrelationships between humans, non-human others (e.g., animals), and the earth.

A central tenet in ecofeminism states that male ownership of land has led to a dominator culture (patriarchy), manifesting itself in food export, over-grazing, the tragedy of the commons, exploitation of people, and an abusive land ethic, in which animals and land are valued only as economic resources. Other ecofeminists claim that the degradation of nature contributes to the degradation of women.

Vandana Shiva makes it clear that one of the missions of ecofeminism is to redefine how societies look at productivity and activity of both women and nature who have mistakenly been deemed passive, allowing for them both to be ill-used.

Feminist concepts are so integrated into the mainstream that many are now taken for granted.

The first generation of people raised after the second wave reach adulthood. Roles are more fluid, awareness of sexism is increased; both men and women have more internalized permissions for full expression of self. BUT we still have a long way to go.

On February 26, 2009, Frances Fuchs, PhD presented a seminar on the history of feminism and feminist therapy to the Chrysalis staff and board. Below is a thumbnail history of the feminist movement that Frances compiled. For more information about Frances and the work that she does, click here. To see an article detailing a Feminist Therapy Code of Ethics, click here